Automatically Add Songs & Movies to iTunes

Using a little known folder buried within the iTunes directory, you can automatically add any compatible media to iTunes, be it songs, music, movies, just by placing files into the directory. This gets even better when you point downloads to that directory, because all downloaded media is then immediately synced to iTunes with no user interaction.

It’s extremely easy to set up, here is how to use the “Automatically Add to iTunes” feature on any Mac with OS X in two simple steps:

Navigate to your home folder ~/iTunes/iTunes Media/ and find the “Automatically Add to iTunes” folder

Select “Automatically Add to iTunes” and hit Command+L to make an alias of it, drag that alias to either the desktop or to the downloads folder

Next you will want to point downloads to that aliased folder, so open your torrent clients, SoundCloud, web browsers, or where ever else you are getting media files from, and change their respective download directories. You can also change the name of the user ~/Downloads directory and move the aliased “Automatically Add” folder in it’s place, but that isn’t the best idea if you download other files too.

Once you have apps pointed at the folder, all completed media files will now go directly to iTunes with no user involvement, copying, clicking, nothing, everything is automatic. This is an excellent way to have files downloaded from the web, newsgroups, torrents, etc, synced directly to your iTunes library, which can then go right to iOS devices.

This should work with nearly all versions of iTunes and all versions of Mac OS X. While the guide is geared towards Mac users, the folder probably exists and works the same in Windows too, though you’ll have to make a shortcut instead of an alias. Enjoy!

18 Comments

Me again. I created the alias and copied two files to it. One of them could not be added to iTunes and created a folder named “Not Added” to which empty folders were added every 3 seconds or so. I deleted the unaddable file and the “Not Added” folder.

Did you actually try it and see what happens? When I did it, it seemed to try to add it every 3 seconds or so and, when it failed, created a subfolder in a folder called “Not Added” – so of a weird log.

go to safari preferences, general, check-open “safe” files after downloading… any file extensions compatible with itunes, when finished downloading will automatically add, open itunes and play the file. this is the easiest way ive found, but can get distracting. hope it helps

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